Things are here

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So yesterday was a big day for us; on Tuesday, with no warning at all the movers rang and said “can we deliver your stuff tomorrow, please”. This was a surprise as we’d been told it’d be a few weeks, last time I spoke to our broker, and had no other updates at all. Still, gift horse, mouth, and all that. So we organised for the stuff to be delivered yesterday morning, and then I ran up to collect Rebecca today.

So at 8am (they did say ‘between 8 and 10’), the lorry pulled up with our little tiny shipping container (20 ft is really not much) and the guys proceeded to unload it. It took them a while to grasp that this really is all our stuff. That we’ve sold, given away, or thrown away everything else, more or less. Our entire life, including 50% of our cars now fits in a 20ft container. Freaky.

Anyhow, Our poor piano, much abused, landed up in the lounge, along with the vinyl. Our books all landed in the office. And tools and kitchenware is all thrown into the garage. Fun fun.

And we are nearly here...

We now have to go through each box and check for damage and mould. Particularly as the first box we opened, which contained my gramophone, was packed really badly. The gramophone has a scrape on it, and the box consisted of random objects (enamelled lampshade, anglepose lamp, dremel clone, gramophone, mandolin) all shoved in the box with essentially no packing. There was a bit of wedged cardboard. There was a bit of export wrap around the mandolin. Otherwise…nothing. Which is terrifying.

Also, the gramophone had mould. Not a lot of mould, only as far as I can tell on the velvet of the turntable, but still. Mould. Feh.

So every box needs checking now. Which will be a project in itself, because there’s about 80-some boxes.

Today was, of course, Rebecca-collecting-day. As should be marked on everyone’s calendar. It didn’t start to auspiciously, with the movers ringing calling me to say that she wouldn’t start. But the description sounded like I’d left the immobiliser on (and, to be honest, most of my tools were in her boot trunk, anyhow) so off we went. I arrived and found some shipping damage – the things packed around the car had rubbed through the paint on the rear wing. Which is pretty tedious and upsetting.

However, she started first try and drove back beautifully.

Home again, home again, tra la la.

‘course then I went to get her titled and it all went pear shaped as someone, somewhere in the chain has failed to forward the documentation I needed. That, however, gets to wait until Monday afternoon (unless I get a reply tomorrow on e-mail).

With stuff in the house it’s become apparent that I hadn’t really realised the extent to which this house is bigger. I mean, I know America’s bigger. When I was looking for a car, that became rapidly apparent. I rack up 26 miles just getting groceries. The run to go to the vehicle licencing place is in double figures and it’s in the same town we’re in. So, yeah, it’s bigger. But I think I’ve kind-of not really realised how much bigger this house is, for example. So our piano used to fairly dominate the room in Bristol. It took up most (well, probably half, but once the shelves and door were taken into account, effectively all) of a wall in our lounge.

It looked ‘big’.

And now, it’s up against a wall in the lounge of the house that we’re sharing, alongside a big table and a large flatscreen TV on a TV stand. And it looks *small*.

It’s quite odd.

The other thing that I’m missing, slightly (other than people. I’m missing friends from work and outside work), is the closeness and hidgledypigldey buildings. You just don’t see that in this bit of the states. The crushed in streets filled with a random mixture of buildings from the 1700s up to the 21st century. All next to each other, all smooshed in together.

I do miss that.

On the other hand, I love seeing the mountain. I love that whilst I was feeling a bit stroppy on the way back from my failed adventure in auto licencing, I crested a bridge and there was Mount Ranier glowing in the evening sun, it’s top brushed by clouds. I love that we’re out here and apart from the occasional passing car, all we hear is the wind chimes. I love the open space, and the air smelling clean. And at night, looking up and seeing so. many. stars.

Yeah, so that’s cool.

KateWE

Kate's allegedly a human (although increasingly right-wing bigots would say otherwise). She's definitely not a vampire, despite what some other people claim. She's also mostly built out of spite and overcoming oppositional-sexism, racism, and other random bullshit. So she's either a human or a lizard in disguise sent to destroy all of humanity. Either way, she's here to reassure that it's all fine.